J. B. Dunn, after many years of activity as an agriculturist in Champaign County, is living retired in the comforts and conveniences of a good town home on Third Street in St. Joseph. Mr. Dunn is a native of the grand old Blue Grass country of Harrison County, Kentucky. His parents were Benjamin F. and […]
Van B. Swearingen was at once one of the most successful business men and most honored citizens of Champaign County. His name is especially associated with the community of St. Joseph, where the best years of his life were spent. Mr. Van Swearingen was born in Adams County, Ohio, June 2, 1837, and died January
Jesse R. Glascock. Champaign County as a whole attests the truth of the observation that “Our civilization rests at bottom on the wholesomeness, the attractiveness and the completeness, as well as the prosperity of life in the country.” It is surely the men of the open country who compose the stay and strength of the
Otis G. Hawk, a native son of Champaign County, long identified with the agricultural enterprise of this section, has directed his efforts with such good purpose that now, at the age of fifty, he is able to retire and enjoy the comforts of a good town home in the village of St. Joseph. Mr. Hawk
Jacob S. Coons. For nearly sixty years Jacob S. Coons has been a resident of Champaign County. He knew the county when it was wild prairie and swamp, and knows it as one of the garden spots of the world. He came here in the flush of young manhood, with little more than his native
Alpheus C. Swearingen. At a pleasant home on Sherman Street in the village of St. Joseph reside a couple who carry with them many memories of Champaign County both old and new and are enjoying the declining years of life with comforts and the riches of esteem befitting their worthy careers. Mr. and Mrs. Swearingen
Lew E. Stevenson. The village and community of St. Joseph have had no citizen whose work and interests have been more closely identified with the general welfare than Lew E. Stevenson. His home has been there for forty years, and almost continuously during that time he was in business in the village, but has kept
Columbus Clinton McElwee is one of Champaign County’s successful farmers and cattle feeders, and has come up from the bottom round of the ladder to a most successful position. The best type of success is that which depends upon personal energy and initiative in acquiring those things which a worthy ambition craves, and in this
Louis Denhart. If true success consists in a steady betterment of one’s material circumstances, a growing enlargement of views and increasing influence as a member of the community, the life of Louis Denhart has been exceptionally successful by all the standards that might be applied to it. Mr. Denhart, who though looking after the cultivation
Norman C. Hoyt has spent the best years of his life in one of the rich agricultural districts of Champaign County, has become prosperous from his handling of the soil and its crops, has reared a capable family, and has many reasons to be well satisfied with the retrospect that he can now contemplate while
Francis M. Leigh of St. Joseph village is one of Champaign County’s veteran farmers. He is also one of those living who have seen most of the development of this section of the country. His own part has been not entirely that of a witness, and taking the aggregate results of the work and influence
John M. Peters, who now lives retired in the village of St. Joseph, has exemplified above everything else that quality of permanence which enters into the best class of personal and national character. Mr. Peters was for sixty-five continuous years a resident of one place, the farm where he grew up as a boy and
David Maddock, who died in 1909, was a citizen of the type and virtues who should long be remembered not only among his descendants but by all who find encouragement and inspiration in a life of practical utility and a devotion to the best interests of mankind. Mr. Maddock lived in Champaign County for nearly
Edward Butzow, a resident of St. Joseph Township for a long period of years, has had a career that challenges admiration and respect. It has the solid basis of industry and is crowned by a success of his own achieving, won by the strictest regards to honest principles and integrity of character. Mr. Butzow is
Salem L. Ketterman, one of the oldest residents of the village of St. Joseph, has been there continuously for forty-four years. He has all the time been closely associated with its welfare and has lived to see many changes recorded in the history of Champaign County. The only other man still living in St. Joseph
James M. Reese has been a factor in the business life of the village of St. Joseph for nearly thirty years, and has made a success because he has given a service a little better than others in the same line and has constantly striven to please. Mr. Reese was born in that historic section
James Sperry, a well known contractor and builder at Ogden, is a native of Champaign County, and has spent his active career to good purpose early as a farmer and later in the business which has brought him such generous success. Mr. Sperry was born north of St. Joseph, November 27, 1859, a son of
John Cecil Somers is one of the youngest bankers of Champaign, and his career and experience have been worked out in one-institution. When he was seventeen years of age he entered the Commercial Bank of Champaign, and by doing the duties which lay nearest and making himself generally useful to his superiors and to the
